Firstly, because you can't guarentee that you're going to manage to incapacitate them, and you can't guarentee that even if you do, they'll be so incapacitated they won't be able to harm you or your family. Secondly, why should one care? That's stupidly idealistic that is. What are you going to do to knock him out? Spray your KO Spray at them? No, you pick up something bloody heavy, and you whack 'em as hard on the head as you can. If that knocks them out than fair enough, if it causes brain damage, whatever. It's nothing to do with a lust for violence, it's a recognition that no-one who breaks into your home is deserved of the common respect for life that all are normally entitled to. edit: And in response to the above, I'd say even if they're running, so long as they're on your property you should be able to do what you want to them. If someone's running away with my most prized possession in the world, damn right I'm going to want to attack them even though they're running. Even if they don't have anything, once they've broken in, that's it.
QFT!! In situations like catching an intruder in a house, there is no time to stop and think about what measure of violence would be appropriate. Hesitation would give any intruder time to react, I would do anything and everything to get them down and keep them down, regardless of whether they were making a break for it or coming on strong. Saying that this is bloodlust is quite silly, as I wouldn't want the confrontation, it would be forced upon me by the intruder. If it was bloodlust, then we could quite easily go and pick a fight somewhere where our families are not.
Hypothetical situation time: 1) You come home, find a moving van in your driveway! You suspect that there are burglars in your home! Do you: a) Run in and knock all of them out, tie them up, then call the police. b) Call the police, and while waiting you log onto bit-tech from your iphone, and post a new thread in serious. 2) You come home, find a moving van in your driveway, and you know that at least one of your family members are home!! You suspect that there are burglars in your home, and your family is in danger!! Do you: a) Run in and knock all of them out before any of them have a chance to hurt anyone that you care about, including your dog or cat, tie them up, then call the police. b) Call the police, and while waiting you log onto bit-tech from your iphone, and post a new thread in serious. 3) You wake up, and hear a noise in the kitchen. Do you: a) Quietly sneak up and knock out the intruder with the heaviest object you can find, no time to hesitate and have a good look at them beforehand to make sure it isn't your girlfriend, then tie them up and call the police. b) Call the police, and while waiting you log onto bit-tech from your iphone, and post a new thread in serious.
If they were unarmed personally it should be legal to knock them out so you can phone the authorities and they will be arrested.. if they were armed with a knife you should be allowed incapacitate them same with a gun. However the law in the UK at the moment stops you doing anything with the use of force, you hit em you can be done for assualt.. like the guy who was breaking into a house slipped and landed on a knife in the kitchen he sued the home owners and won.. If i remember correctly if they are upstairs your allowed to hit them but downstairs you are powerless (correct me if thats wrong) but personally it should be anywhere on your property you should be allowed to use non lethal force against the intruder.
Nonlethal force should be allowed. This includes knee-capping and waterboarding!.. Hey, it aint lethal.. ?!
Non-lethal and even lethal force is allowed, as Bindi (?) pointed out much earlier. The courts consider it in terms of proportionate force. I agree that hitting somebody over the head with something heavy is a perfectly natural reaction. Hitting them again until they stop twitching, that's not. When you argue for the right to kill burglars, you're arguing for the latter. If you accidentally kill a burglar in the process of incapacitating them, it's no biggie. They're breaking into your ****ing house. But actively attempting to kill them is psychopathic, family defense instincts or none. Re: the running burglar - there's nothing wrong with doing something to stop him, either. Break a leg, tackle him, throw something at him, whatever. The distinction is that I don't think you should then have free reign to kill him. You hit him, sure; he keeps struggling, you hit him again. He's limp or surrendering - you don't. Why would you? I know there are emotionally founded reasons to, and honestly, I would. But I wouldn't expect the law to defend my actions beyond the point where he stopped being a threat. I'm basically venting anger at his presence, not defending myself. Proportionate force is a bloody razorwire forest in court, though. Good luck drawing black-and-white divisions in any of this.
You'd be screwed if he wasn't facing you over in the UK. I'd be screwed even if he was facing me, it's California.
There is no way in hell I could kill anybody, intrudor or not. Its a human life we're talking about, and I'm surprised to see so many people saying they would and wonder if they say it now but if it really came to it, would they? There is an underlining reason as to why this person chose to rob your/my house and people should take that into consideration. Perhaps the guy has a family and its his last option? Or perhpas his life is generally just crappy due to a poor upbringing and its all hes ever known or learnt. In any case, yes stealing is wrong, and if I caught somebody in my house I would first confront him (wtf are you doing?!) chances are he would run, if not I'd pull out my big 'dont mess with me' knife and hold him at point until the police turn up making sure he believes I'd kill him even though I wouldnt, I'm a pretty good actor believe it or not!
I'm not sure if you are serious here, but you'd be able to knock all of them out? There might be 2, 3, maybe 5! Even if they are all teenage chavs, they'd all have a kitchen knife or a baseball bat or at least some sort of weapon along those lines. Say you see them running away, do you really want to attract their attention? You really want to piss off 2 or 3 chav's carrying kitchen knives? Because if there is just one burglar, you know it's gonna be a real baddass that has the guts to break in someone's house by himself!!! There's no way some little chav is gonna do it without at least a couple of his mates around. And who is gonna do it without carrying some very harmfull weaponry? A guy with more balls than brains, will run at the first burglar he sees, screaming. Good luck with that A guy with brains, will try to stay calm and hide everyone he cares about or better yet leave if possible. A smart guy will try to reason or bargain/bribe the burglars if he's cornered, in my opinion anyway. Everything the burglar takes gets replaced with new ffs, so do me a favour, and steal everything, just not my backup disks please
This is an interesting point. Of couse, there are two ways to interpret it- (a) I should therefore have bigger, stronger means to fight back: guns, bats, the like; (b) I should therefore hide the **** out of sight and make sure I don't get in their way. I can't really agree with either. I guess I'd just be screwed in a burglary. I couldn't best anyone, and I couldn't sit by and do nothing, so I'd probably just end up dead. What a wonderful world we live in.
Whoa, take it easy! Just remember what's important! You, family, friends, and then irreplaceable items. Letting the burglars take all of your material possesions whilst staying safe with everyone, isn't doing nothing! It's putting the ones you care about first, and getting new for old as a reward After that you either seriously up the security or change suburbs of course.
Am I backwards in thinking that I first protect the people on my property and either incapacitate the burglar or get him running away, THEN call the police?
No. The idea of going through the multi-choice bureaucratic calldesks whilst huddled in a corner hiding from an intruder is laughable. In fact, the emergency services calldesks are generally laughable. "Hello, which service do you require? Press one for..." It's so absurdly quaint given the context; all you want from an emergency service line is [ring once] "emergency services?" "118 Swaddleford Crescent, there's someone breaking into my house!!!" "on our way, sit tight." [fin] As they are now, the burglar would hear and kill you before you finished telling them your date of birth and the nature of your emergency
Ours are a bit different, we are greeted with a person that says "911 what is your emergency?" all you have to say then is "118 Swaddleford Crescent, there's someone breaking into my house!!!" Although I have had emergency services laugh at me once when I was reporting a flooded road that had caused people to stall out during a hurricane. My last name is Waters and the woman laughed at it and what I was reporting.
